April 7, 2008

I really enjoy reading opposing views, on any topic, but I honestly enjoy reading others’ religious responses. Oftentimes, I find their views to be lacking in a verity of respects (most notably, logic), but one item of interest regularly startles me: Capitalization of Regular Vocabulary.

Why is it that Christians, Muslims, etc., always capitalize words such as, truth, gospel, holy, word, and reason? There many other examples (feel free to comment), but why is this done? Okay, some capitalization is obviously necessary. Jesus Christ — first and last name. Lord — proper title. Heaven and Hell — names of places, albeit imaginary. Holy Bible — title of an old book.

But today, I came across a post of a fellow atheist where he displayed an example of an email that capitalized “Good News.”

Really? Good news is not a title of anything. It’s not a place. It’s not even a day of the week or month. It is, quite simply, the opposite of “Bad News.” Why does it have to be capitalized? Do all religious people have the god-given right to capitalize every word they want? The line must be drawn Somewhere!